The overall performance of the KwaDukuza Municipality (KDM) has increased by 21%, although it is still hamstrung by consistent electricity losses.
This emerged as part of the draft annual report tabled in council last week. It will be released for public comment on February 3.
In the 2020/2021 financial year ending in June, KDM’s performance was rated at 68%, a significant increase from the 47% of 2019/2020.
This included increases in all but one of the 6 key performance areas: financial management and viability (remained at 65%), basic service delivery (56%), institutional transformation and municipal development (75%), spatial planning and environmental management (88%), local economic development and social development (56%) and good governance and public participation (69%).
The poor performance of the previous financial year was blamed largely on the difficulties the municipality faced during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The overall municipal performance increased owing to the application of mitigation strategies to improve service delivery which was affected by the national state of disaster promulgated in March 2020,” said KDM mayor, Lindi Nhaca.
Despite the improvements, the municipality still deals with a multitude of issues, chief among them being the consistent energy losses incurred by cable theft and illegal connections.
In 2019/2020, the municipality lost R152-million (21%) of energy, which increased to R181-million (23%) in 2020/2021. In the 6 months of the 2021/2022 financial year, R132-million has already been lost.
The national averages on energy loss are between 6-12%, which indicates a serious issue underscoring KDM’s performance targets.
A 41% vacancy rate in the electrical engineering department only adds to the lack of effective network infrastructure protection.
In closing, mayor Nhaca emphasised the need for the elected officials to take responsibility for their portfolios and the work they were voted in to do.
“It is time to up our game. The choice before us is clear – either we are prepared to take hard decisions and discharge our duties as elected public representatives or municipal officials, or we face the consequence of poor or regressed performance. We want to see harsh consequences for non-performance,” she said.
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